is dry hopping this beer a good idea?

I have a batch of Extra Pale Ale sitting in primary right now. It will be two weeks old on Saturday and the gravity has been steady at 1.012 for 3 days (I'll do one last test on Saturday). I have another kit ready to go so I want to rack it to secondary on Saturday to free up my 6.5 gal. carboy.

So here's my question, I have been growing hops and I have harvested about 8 oz. of Centennials and dried them. From what I've read Centennials are great aroma hops so I thought I'd dry hop my brew with them. Here's the recipe;

Specialty Grains
* 1 lbs. Dingemans Caramel Pils
Fermentables
* 6 lbs. Gold Malt Syrup
Boil Additions
* 2 oz. Cascade (60 min)
* 1 oz. Cascade (1 min)

* Safale US-05. Optimum temperature: 59-75° F.

Would you think dry hopping with the Centennials was a good idea? How much would you add?

In my opinion, dryhopping is almost always a good idea!

I'd try it. I'd start with one ounce, for about a week. If it needs more, you could add another ounce after that. I love the aroma I get from my hops- I grow cascade and hallertauer. I rarely use the hallertauer, but I used 16 ounces (dried) of my homegrown cascades last year. I'd love to get a centennial rhizome next year. I think you'll get a very nice flavor out of dryhopping with it.

I'd definitely give it a try. Dry hop adds a nice aroma and should compliment the cascade bittering and flavor hops pretty well. I agree 1 oz seems like a good place to start and see what you think of it.

Cheers

Thanks for the support, I was really wanting to do this (my brother in-law gave me the rhizomes and this will be the first fruit of their labor!)

I plan on having the beer sitting in secondary for 2-3 weeks. Are you saying to add it after racking and then check it half way through secondary to see if I should add more?

LarryC said:

Thanks for the support, I was really wanting to do this (my brother in-law gave me the rhizomes and this will be the first fruit of their labor!)

I plan on having the beer sitting in secondary for 2-3 weeks. Are you saying to add it after racking and then check it half way through secondary to see if I should add more?

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I don't like to dryhop more than a week or so- so I'd dryhop about a week before bottling. If you taste it and it's not enough, you can add some more, but I wouldn't go more than 10 days to 2 weeks on the hops.

What I like to do is give the dry hops a week. If it isn't enough, I pull the bag and replace them. Centennial works well with Cascades.

Yeah no reason to leave an extra pale ale on secondary for 2-3 weeks that has already primaried for 2 weeks. In reality the beer is probably mostly done and cleaned up already being on the light side, you won't really gain much by the longer secondary. So go a week in secondary with the dry hops and try a sample to see where you are at

Thanks all!

I'll get things started this weekend and let everyone know how it tastes once I get it bottled and conditioned properly (I hate waiting )